2008 - Aftermath

The recurring lucid dream.
waiting...remembering...
wondering if premonitions are myths.

Checking the wind
and hoping it's blowing another way.

Thoughts for a Wednesday Morning

Mr Obama's silence is being interpreted by many as an implicit agreement with President George W. Bush's stance. Photo: REUTERS


The White House (at Crawford) speaks

WASHINGTON - Deputy White House Press Secretary Gordon Johndroe said Tuesday that while the US would like to see an end to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, Hamas would first have to stop firing rockets at Israel.

Speaking at a press briefing held at US President George W. Bush's Texas ranch, Johndroe said that the US does not want to see a ceasefire "which isn’t worth the paper it's written on," but rather a long-term, sustainable truce. more ynet


People who believe their own hype will come to a bad end

If Israel wanted peace, there would be peace. It is really as simple as that, because Israel always gets what Israel wants.

Look at the maps. The maps don't lie, only the people do. There is precious little the Palestinians can give up but their lives, at this point. And that seems to be just fine with Israel, because Israel does not want peace. Israel does not want to share the land with the Palestinians. Not after 60 years. Not ever.

Israel always gets what Israel wants. And everybody knows it. And they will continue to carve up the Palestinians until they have satisfactorily carved themselves clean out of the human race.

And then humanity will say, "I know you not."
more - A. Peasant at Twelfth Bough

Are You Prepared If Your Bank Fails?
Small locally owned banks aren't in trouble and are not beholding to Wall Street, nor to the criminals at the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank .

The large multi national global corporations and entities which seek to nationalize private property and make us all dependent debt slaves have lost control of the current economic situation.

The proof of this is in the overnight interest rate and the artificially controlled prices of oil, gold, and silver.

Stored food, guns, ammo, land, gold, strong community ties, silver, livestock, energy independence and the skills of self reliance are the foundations of security and real freedom.
Our ancestors knew this.
more - Granny Miller


"Perfecting" the Imperfect

Science fiction writer and futurist, Arthur C. Clarke, stated in his "laws" of prediction that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," and it's this "magic," which is the science behind the advanced technology unknown to the general public, that is being developed and perfected, not to free humanity but enslave and ultimately destroy it.

People in the Western nations are constantly being beat over the head with well-funded propaganda designed to instill in their minds hope of a cure for cancer and AIDS. Well-meaning but painfully naive people driven by fear and emotion will then donate their hard-earned money to what they think is a noble cause, not knowing that these donations are going to the very same government-linked institutions that gave us AIDS and are working to create -- not cure -- even faster-acting cancer viruses and plagues; the former being unleashed from the tip of a needle, with the latter waiting in some government laboratory to be released at a time seen fit by the psychopathic controllers on an oblivious public (no doubt to be blamed on some Middle Eastern patsies).
more - Matthew Jarvie

The Jews Who Kill the British

Livni and friend

Tzipora Livni is Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs.

She is the daughter of Eitan Livni, born in Poland, and Sara Rosenberg, both of whom were members of the anti-British, Jewish terrorist organisation called Irgun.

Journalist Louis Heren (Media Lens Israel's New Foreign Minister.) wrote in The Times, 11 February 1992:

"Eitan Livni was not a leader of a militant Jewish independence movement.

"The Irgun Zwai Leumi was a terrorist oganization, and a particularly nasty one.

"Even its defenders, who argued that the end could justify the means at decisive moments in history, were horrified by the massacre at Deir Yassin and the hanging of the British sergeants."

Irgun killed British people.

more - aangirfan

Would They Be Planning to Use Troops Against Americans If They Weren't Stealing Our Money

Political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso Charles Boehmer points out that "The military was not called out during the Great Depression...."

So why is the military planning on how to crush civil protest in regards to the current economic crisis (see this, this, this, this, this and this)?

Is it because the theft - via "bailouts" and other hanky-panky by Treasury, the Fed and others - of hard-earned taxpayer wealth is so obvious that the military expects Americans to revolt?

The other potential explanation is that the military has been told that this financial crisis could be much, much worse than the Great Depression.

So which is it? The obviousness of the theft or the severity of the crisis?

My guess . . . both

athleo at WUFYS

Bankers Connected to Madoff's Ponzi Scheme Dying Strange Deaths

Right, these "suicides" are not related to the 50 BILLION dollars that Madoff scammed from his investors with help from various bankers.

And just because some of that money wound up in Israel is no cause for alarm.

It's just a series of odd "coincidences" that always seem to pop up anytime that SLC on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean appears involved in some illegal scheme.

Look at it this way: If a gang of armed thugs robbed a bank for $20,000, they'd probably have no qualms about shooting some people to make their escape.

So how many people do you think a well armed gang of vicious thugs would be willing to kill to steal 50 BILLION DOLLARS?

more - Greg Bacon

Please Help the Victims of the Madoff Natural Disaster

Because Jewish wealth is a terrible thing to lose

Millions of wealthy Jewish Americans are now in peril. If you don't contribute they may perish(probably 6 million). Your help is now urgently needed.

Please donate your unused cash(preferably Euros), gold, silver, expensive jewelry(no zirconium please), priceless artwork(only originals accepted), and new or late model Mercedes(must be in mint condition).

Remember these formerly wealthy people must eat too. Gift certificates to these restaurants will also be accepted. Please no certificates less than $500.00. These are proud people.
more - Liberal White Boy


Jewish GPS car tax by the mile in USA
Do you want your car turned into a government taxi cab? The gas tax will remain, of course. This GPS tracker will spy on your location, who who associate with, where you family lives, when you're away from home, how to blackmail you. This includes GPS traffic tickets by mail, with mass firings of 100,000s of police (not a bad thing?). All operated by foreign military contractors for their shareholders' profit, just like Redflex. This is why insane Big Brother must be stopped at any cost, and all governors who implement this treason must be immediately arrested by police, or by citizen's arrest:

Oregon Pursues Mileage Tax and Tracking Legislation

more - Pirate News TV


How to cook a gentile
Funny Jew Evan Dorkin offers readers an unusual recipe for Jewish HEEB magazine - The Goy Issue. It’s in good fun - yummy?

Comments: This would have been humorous if it were not historically factual. What’s next, an attempt by HEEB to show humor in the communist atrocities committed by Jews against Gentiles? This is a Jewish publication, that’s why they will get away with this. The magazine was not bought at a Zionist or AIPAC meeting, no, far more insidiously it’s sold openly on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. Contact customer support and share a piece of your mind.
more - Pirate News TV


9/11 - Fuck the Bullshit
It's time for everyone to know the truth about 9/11... Fuck the bullshit!
No conspiracy theories, just the facts.
more with videos - Facts not Fairies

Interactive guide to the Israeli Attacks on Gaza


Barak asks go't for more reservists

An IDF soldier checks the machine gun in his Merkava tank in a staging area near the Gaza border Tuesday

In their own words

Sallai Meridor, Israel's ambassador to the United States, talking to reporters:

In a conference call Tuesday with reporters, Sallai Meridor said criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza as disproportionate is like "telling a lady who had to push a rapist and [is] caught by the camera pushing back the rapist that she was using disproportionate force."

From the JTA article "Meridor: Hamas terrorists are like rapists."

Philip Weiss

US military aid underpins Gaza offensive

video via The Peoples Voice


Voiceless in Gaza: Israeli Carnage and the American Courtiers

Death and sorrow continue to pour down in torrents over Gaza. And every death is delivered with the backing of the full faith and credit of the United States. American money, American weaponry -- and unstinting, unquestioning American diplomatic support -- are underwriting the brutal carnage. There is scarcely a single voice along the commanding heights of American power to raise the slightest protest against a savage war crime being committed in broad daylight, day after day, with the approval and connivance of the "civilized" world. The hard, enclosed, impenetrable shell of American "bipartisanship" has achieved a steely perfection on the issue of Palestine; it is itself a missile -- a weapon of mass destruction -- falling on the people of Gaza.
more - Chris Floyd


How Venture Capitalists Try to Control What You Know About Any Issue Out There
The application is called Megaphone Desktop Tool and what it does is send out instant messages to people who are signed up, the alert them to a story or a Reddit page, that has anything to do with whatever issue they want to “shape” via controlling the story.

Theocratic, political, and corporate micro-management of the blogosphere. Smart. You have to give them that. But do you think they ever take a moment late at night and wonder what our world would be like if these smart bastards turned their talents toward fixing problems rather than figuring out new and impressive ways to lie, cheat, and steal that next all important fucking dollar? You think they have moments of clarity like that? Yeah, me neither.
more - Scott Creighton

And now for your only diversion of the day.

From the Enquirer that has no war coverage except for the war on intelligence.

Pam: Breast TV Ever

Prosecute the NIST for Obstruction of Justice

Len Hart

NIST may have deliberately lied about the collapse of Building 7 --said to have been 'pulled' even by Larry Silverstein, its owner. The NIST, charged with investigating the building's collapse, is still trying to peddle the absurd ex post facto rationalization that 'heat expansion' or some other fancy sounding made up word/phrase is responsible for the perfectly symmetrical collapse of a building that had never been struck by aircraft.

Lies about crimes are crimes. 911 was a crime. Lies about 911 are obstructions of justice. NIST lied about 911 and now, a group urging a real investigation of 911, is suing to charge NIST with obstruction of justice.

Prosecute NIST 'Authors for Lying About Building 7

In case after case, scandal after scandal, American federal law enforcement officials have clearly shown by their indictments and prosecutions that there is no confusion in their minds—lying is a crime. Businesspersons need to clearly understand those rules and what prosecutors define as lying. In recent corporate scandals, some executives have learned the hard way that lying is still a crime in corporate America. Martha Stewart was accused of selling her ImClone stock allegedly after receiving insider information. However, she was not convicted of securities fraud. She was instead convicted for lying. In addition, Computer Associates executives were indicted and some have already pleaded guilty for lying to their own company’s attorney during an internal investigation when their lies were passed on by their attorney to the government.--Linnea B. McCord, JD, MBA, Kim Greenhalgh, JD, and Michael Magasin, JD, The rules regarding lying in business in the U.S. are currently being vigorously enforced

911 liars held to a lesser standard, a parallel system of justice in which the laws that apply to everyone else are ignored or winked at whether the 'persons of interest' happen to be proponents of new and phony laws of physics or the numerous lies told by George W. Bush himself.

Recently, Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002[15], which included a specific section declaring that the destruction or alteration of documents (or the inclusion of false entries in such documents) constitutes the crime of obstruction of justice, which carries a twenty-year prison sentence. Destroying documents—or otherwise concealing tangible evidence—clearly can subject anyone engaging in such conduct to criminal prosecution.From the legislative history of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, it appears that the new obstruction of justice section was intended to be broader in scope and to eliminate some of the ambiguities and technicalities that had been required for a conviction as described above.[16] --Linnea B. McCord, JD, MBA, Kim Greenhalgh, JD, and Michael Magasin, JD, The rules regarding lying in business in the U.S. are currently being vigorously enforced

It is clear enough to anyone who has followed the time line of events. Bush --his administration, his gang of 'close supporters' --exploited the events of 911, overtly obstructed investigations, and repeatedly lied about the crimes. The result has been the disastrous and criminal regime of George W. Bush. It matters.

The official theories about 911 are all indefensible, revised often to overcome new objections as they arise. All are lies, ex post facto rationalizations to cover up the crime. Certainly --the lies themselves are crimes and it is time to bring the 911 liars to justice. No more lies. No more bullshit. No more re inventing the laws of physics. No more new-speak. No more double plus good.

There is no reason to suppose that anything supernatural happened at WTC 7; there is no reason to suppose that laws of physics discovered and described by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Newton, Galileo et al were repealed.

There is reason to suspect that something highly illegal happened at WTC 7. Persistent heat patterns, observed and photographed from space are big holes in Bush's official theory which cannot explain them innocently. If 'thermal expansion' is to be implicated, the source of additional heat MUST be demonstrated. An ex post facto cover story, like Arlen Spector's magic bullet theory, is not it.

The best explanation for the collapse of WTC 7 is still the simplest --Silverstein's simple statement that the building had been 'pulled' following his discussion and agreement with firefighters. Silverstein is on video tape confirming that within minutes of his discussion with firefighters, in which it was agreed that the building be pulled. The building would not be pulled, however, until two major news outlets reported the collapse before it happened in fact. That building 7 is irrefutable. It looks like every other controlled demolition because that is precisely what it was.

'Thermal expansion' differs among various materials. The 'thermal expansion' co-efficient of steel can be looked up here for free! If you are willing to pay a small yearly subscription fee, you can plug that coefficient (for steel) into an 'online' calculator that will tell you precisely how much 'expansion' can be expected per degree of heat in various scales. The coefficients are one thing. Of more interest are the exponents which, as I recall, are always negative, as in negative 6. Any positive number to the power of negative six, for example, is very, very, very small. Any coefficient to a negative power is very, very, very small.
Windharps Playlist: Habeas Corpus, The Constitution, 911, & Patriot Act[s]

source: http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/12/prosecute-nist-for-obstruction-of.html

The Hanukkah Massacres

Thomas Paine's Corner

By Gary Corseri

12/31/08

On the seventh day of Hanukkah, 2008, as Jews around the world were lighting the seventh candle on the menorah, commemorating the victorious rebellion of Judah Macabbee and the re-dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem 2200 years ago, a terrorist, Zionist entity, with the approval of the world’s last “Superpower” rained down death and destruction on men, women and children herded together on a sliver of the land they had once cultivated and shared with their fellow Semites.

Characteristically, a spokesman for the last Superpower blamed the herded people, the bombed and slaughtered, for their own miseries. It seems these herded Palestinians had had the effrontery to rebel against their Zionist masters in Tel Aviv, London, Jerusalem, New York and Washington.

Surely, one shoe-thrower protested, the world would see that they had as much right to rebel as Juddah Maccabee had to rebel against Hellenization—the alien creeds of Graeco-Romanism. Surely they had as much right to rebel as the Jews who rebelled against the emperor Tiberius; and, more recently, they had as much right to rebel as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. Hadn’t the Superpower enshrined the right of rebellion in its own sacred document—its Declaration of Independence: all men (and women—they should have said!) are endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Further, whenever any government became destructive of those rights, it was the duty of the people to alter or abolish it.

For more than 60 years the Palestinian people had seen their lands taken from them, their olive groves ransacked, their children killed, their young men imprisoned, their women humiliated and beaten. During the decades that the last Superpower had fought a Cold War with the next-to-last Superpower, these people and their Arab cousins had been played and sacrificed like so many pawns on the chessboard of the Great Powers. Promises had been made, resolutions (like # 242) passed in the world body of the UN—but time passed, years passed and it was discovered that the words didn’t mean what they were supposed to mean. The Anglo-Americans and the Zionists made treaties of the kind that had been made with the native peoples of Turtle Island/North America. Treaties good as long as grass would grow and wind would blow. And the “sand niggers” of Palestine would discover, as the red man had discovered before him, sometimes grass don’t grow and wind don’t blow.

During the Festival of Lights, 2008, the lights went out all over Gaza. In two days of unabated horrors, 300 people were massacred, 900 wounded and thousands of lives of mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children and friends were forever despoiled. During the Festival of Lights, 2008, the Zionists shamed the ancient religion of Judaism and proved to the world that theirs is not the universal religion of high-minded Leviticus: “And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner; that he may live with thee.” The Zionists have shown that they are the children of a lesser God—a schizoid God who blesses and curses in the same chapter of the same text: “Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. … Of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.”

n the films of my childhood, the “big movies” about World War II, the Nazis were easily identifiable as evil incarnate. They were stiff and military in their pressed uniforms and high, polished boots. Their gestures were stiff salutes, forearm thrust from heart to all the world in front of them, proclaiming “Heil Hitler!” But the clearest sign of their brutishness was their notion of collective punishment. If one person in an occupied town was driven to madness by the occupiers’ savagery and inhumanity; if one person struck out for the inalienable right to liberty; if one among the hundreds or thousands of villagers or townsfolk struck a Nazi officer—or killed a Nazi soldier—then the men of the occupied territory were lined up and forced to count, 1 to 10, 1 to 10, over and over and the tenth man in each group was bid to step forward and then executed.

Collective punishment. Not a new idea of modern warfare. As old as Yahweh ordering the destruction of every man, woman, child, sheep, goat and parakeet in some village in Canaan. And when the Superpower wanted to test out its mad-scientist weapon, its “terrible, swift sword,” it did not hesitate to collectively punish hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because their leaders had had the effrontery to attack a naval station that was being prepped for war against them. How dare the occupied rebel? How dare the war-trodden resist?

Occupation. After the French and Indian War (really a side-show in the World War between France and Britain) the Brits believed they had the right to quarter their soldiers in the homes of the colonists whom they’d spent blood and treasure to “defend.” The colonists, on the other hand, thought they’d be a lot better off without the damned redcoats pinching their daughters and mucking up the place.

Have we become a species too stupid to learn? HUMAN BEINGS DON’T LIKE BEING OCCUPIED. THEY WILL REBEL. THEY WILL CAST STONES. Even against a Goliath, they will cast stones. A Goliath that has spent the last six months of a “peace treaty” closing borders through a stranglehold of checkpoints, obstructing the flow of food and medicine to a malnourished and sickened population of one and a half million imprisoned souls, is likely to get a few sling-shots and home-made rockets pointed in his direction!

A century ago, Zionist zealots hijacked the little religion of Judaism, got on the bandwagon of 19th Century nationalist movements and dreamed very big. They dreamed of a homeland for the wandering Jews. Good enough … but when they cast about to see where to plant New Jerusalem they failed to see, they failed to imagine—because they could not imagine the humanity!—that other people—Semites—were living in the land, some of whom could trace their origins back to before the time of the Hebrews. And the Great Powers—Britain and America, especially—nursed the deluded dreams of the Zionists because it was in the interests of the Great Powers to challenge the old empire of the Ottomans and the emerging power of Germany.

During the Festival of Lights, 2008, before the last candle of the menorah could be lit, while the children played with their dreidles and received their Hannukah gelt, their blind and deranged parents and grandparents rained terror upon a shackled people in an open-air prison, ensuring that the children in the Holy Land and elsewhere in our tortured world would know neither peace nor joy nor light for many years to come.

A Senior Editor of Arts and Culture of Cyrano’s Journal Online, Gary Corseri has published/posted his work at Thomas Paine’s Corner and hundreds of other venues, performed at the Carter Presidential Library, had dramas produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. His books include the novels, Holy Grail, Holy Grail and A Fine Excess. He can be contacted at Gary_Corseri@comcast.net.

To further your sociopolitical education, strengthen your connection with the radical community, and deepen your participation in forming an egalitarian, just, ecological, non-speciesist and democratic society, visit the Transformative Studies Institute at http://transformativestudies.org/ and the Institute for Critical Animal Studies at http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/.

source: http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=1488#more-1488

Let the Stupid Grow the Food

Deep Into ArtLife West

The New Agriculture

Doesn’t that sound like a good idea? Those who are not smart enough to do anything else, let them grow the food we eat. Intelligent and talented people should be doing things that require talent and intelligence, not wasting their lives doing stupid things like growing food.

Some aspects of food are admittedly important, requiring skill and training, but growing it is not one of them. An intelligent person, should they wish to be involved with food, could run a grocery store, or become a food broker, or own or manage a restaurant. They could go into government and make rules and regulate food production or food safety. A talented and creative person could be a chef, run a catering service, design menus, make fancy pastries and decorate cakes; these are all respectable occupations and often well paid ones, unlike farming.

One great thing about the free market is that it clearly lets us know what is important and what isn’t: Important work is well-paid. If producing food were an important occupation, it would be a well paid one. Agriculture is pretty much the lowest paying job worldwide, which clearly shows its lack of importance.

Growing food is perfectly suited for stupid people, as all it consists of is driving a tractor around, putting some seeds in the ground, and then harvesting the plants that grow from the seeds. Any moron can do that, and there is nothing sadder than to see talent and intelligence wasted on a boring, unskilled and dead end job like farming. Luckily our modern society has long since seen the truth of that and young, intelligent, creative, and especially ambitious people know better than to waste their lives in agriculture.

There’s a reason that people tell “dumb farmer” jokes, you know. Let’s face it, though farmers are a minority, they certainly don’t rate minority status and protection like women, colored people, or homosexuals do. It is not nice to make fun of those who can’t help what they are, but farmers can decide what they want to do, and if they are too stupid and lazy to find anything better to do, they should expect to be made fun of.

It hasn’t always been as clear and straightforward as it is today. Back in the days before modern education and communications, lots of people simply didn’t know any better than to be farmers. Much of the ignorance and misguided choices of the past can be forgiven because not only didn’t people know better, in a lot of cases they didn’t have much choice. There were no such things as supermarkets, and in most countries there weren’t even that many big cities to provide decent and respectable employment for smart people. Most people were born on farms and they needed to grow food just to be able to eat and maybe sell a few things for money. They had little education and relied on printed books and newspapers for information, and what sort of books would one expect to find on a farm? How to Grow Corn? Milking Cows for Fun and Profit? Ha ha.

Sadly, even those who should have known better seemingly didn’t. In the USA even educated men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were farmers. Both men went on and on in their journals about their farms, what and where and when they planted, how they fertilized the crops, incredibly boring subjects. Jefferson even had some wacky idea about the “yeoman farmer” who was self-sufficient, sovereign, and free. As if anyone digging in the dirt for a living cared about such lofty things. Whatever was he thinking?

Throughout the 1700s and up to the late 1800s countless brilliant minds were wasted on the dead-end of agriculture. What marvelous and truly useful inventions would Jethro Tull, John Deere, Eli Whitney, or Cyrus McCormick have come up with had they not wasted their time on farm equipment? The delusion got so bad during the mid-1800s that respectable scientists actually discussed agriculture in science journals. There were even whole magazines with names such as The Gentleman Farmer. Now there’s an oxymoron for you.

Luckily for us, the 1800s also brought the Industrial Revolution and the rise of corporate capitalism. Smart and ambitious people were no longer imprisoned in dead-end jobs like farming. Opportunity beckoned in the new factories and bustling cities, where one could work for real wages and buy the things they wanted and needed. Those in other hopeless careers benefitted as well: village carpenters and blacksmiths, weavers and seamstresses were no longer confined to purposeless obscurity in the countryside, no longer forced to make things one at a time for ignorant bumpkins. They could now move to the city and get a real job in mass production, tending the machines that made such better and more uniform products, perhaps even rising to the level of foreman or manager. These former “hicks from the sticks” were no longer at the mercy of the vagaries of weather and climate; they could rely on the comforting security of a paycheck at the end of every week.

By the early 1900s, some benefit came to those still stuck in agriculture from the tinkering with farm machinery and the invention of the steam engine and later the internal combustion engine. Farmers were no longer limited to using smelly, sweaty horses and oxen to pull their plows and their wagons. The self-propelled wheeled tractor came into its own, as did the threshing machine and later the combine. The equipment dealers selling the machinery offered incentives to modernize, often accepting a team of work horses as a trade-in on a new tractor, quite a kindness on their part, as all they were able to do with the now-useless animals was to sell them to the slaughterhouses and pet food factories, but at least the farmers didn’t have to feed them anymore.

A single farmer could now farm a large acreage, sell the crops, and use the money they earned to pay back the bank and the farm equipment dealer and often still have money left to buy food, fuel, seeds, fertilizer, and whatever else was needed or desired that he was no longer forced to grow or make himself.

Even some of the work of the nineteenth century agricultural “scientists” paid off eventually with the invention of new synthetic fertilizers that could coax bumper crops out of the most worn-out soil and new hybrid plant strains that didn’t need anything but modern concentrated fertilizers to thrive, along with marvelous insecticides to handle the bugs that seemed to be strangely attracted to the new crops.

The lone farmer now cultivating hundreds of acres and raising thousands of bushels of grain almost singlehandedly naturally benefited almost everyone as the price of crops fell, and there was need for far fewer farmers. The farmer’s children, the smart ones anyway, got the message and went to the cities where they could live a civilized life far from the dirt, sweat, and smells of their primitive forebears. They learned to be clerks and accountants, shopkeepers and secretaries. They lived in clean apartments with electric lights and running water. No longer did the girls need to perform degrading jobs like baking bread or sewing clothes for the family, no longer did the boys need to work at demeaning tasks like plowing and planting, or learn about greasy machinery or building or taking care of animals. In the cities they could earn money and buy the fruits of machine labor, marvelous and shiny and modern. Food and meals came from the supermarket or the restaurants without sweat or effort on their part.

Many of the smarter farm kids even went to college or University and learned how to do important things that could make them a lot of money in the city. The dumb ones mostly stayed on the farm, but there were a few who desired some education yet weren’t quite bright enough to understand that simple and unskilled tasks like growing food were best left to those who weren’t capable of anything better.

Back in the 1800s many state governments had created something called “agricultural colleges” and they still existed up ‘til the mid-1900s, more or less as a place where the farm kids smart enough to read and write but not bright enough for real colleges could go and get degrees in cow science or plow theory or something. Around 1950 the big chemical, fertilizer, and seed corporations saw an opportunity there and were kind enough to fund whole new programs where those students destined to return to farming could be educated in how to farm more efficiently using pesticides, weed killers, concentrated chemical fertilizers and hybrid crops. Thus the corporations were able to make the best out of an unfortunate situation: the semi-intelligent farm kids could at least be trained to buy and use the right things when they went back to the farm, and they could pretend that they were part of the important industrial economy and not just dumb farmers.

In some ways the whole process has worked as a speeded-up Darwinian selection program: over the course of a few generations we have managed to free the intelligent and valuable members of our society for truly productive and important jobs like being lawyers, business executives, and government bureaucrats while leaving something to do for those lacking in such vision, intelligence, and capability.

A few Luddites have raised the “alarm” by noting that there are now so few family farms left that the US Census Bureau no longer counts farming as an occupation, or pointing out that the average age of US farmers is over 65, but obviously this is a false alarm. The multinational corporations will as always come to our rescue; actually they already have. Corporate agribusinesses are farming millions of acres using the latest high-tech computerized farm machinery and GPS positioning; they hardly even need a person to drive the tractor. The wonderful new Transgenic GMO crops produce their own insecticides to kill any bug foolish enough to try to eat them, yet we know these systemic insecticides pose no harm to us because corporate scientists have assured us they are safe. Really modern corporate farms needn’t even worry much about plant or soil diseases; they can cover the entire field with plastic sheeting, then inject soil sterilants and fumigants to kill off any pesky soil life. Wouldn’t you really rather have your food grown in nice, clean, sterile soil? Of course you would.

As for the ninnies who complain about this efficiently grown food lacking a few nutrients, they should be thankful that those more intelligent and farsighted than them are now staffing the pharmaceutical laboratories and hospitals and have things well under control.

Meanwhile, the corporations will still need a few unintelligent button pushers to sit in the cabs of that computerized GPS-positioned farm machinery, at least for a while longer. By the time the great day comes that all food production is fully automated and industrialized, the more intelligent among us who are now running the corporations and the government may have found some suitable make-work position for those simply unable to contribute to modern society and unable to “fit in” in the city.

The best and brightest have left agriculture for at least the past two hundred years, leaving only the dullards behind to reproduce; surely that lineage has produced about all the worthwhile offspring it is going to and we can only expect things to get worse. If nothing else, perhaps special reservations can be set up in some unneeded parts of the countryside where these sorts of people can be kept out of harm’s way until they naturally die out. It would be a kindness to all concerned.

[Disclaimer and Note: This essay is meant as sarcasm. The point I'm trying to get across is that growing good food is a very important task and art. It should (and does) attract highly intelligent and skilled people and those growing excellent food should be honored and well compensated.]

Posted by m_astera
source: http://thenewagriculture.blogspot.com/2008/12/let-stupid-grow-food.html

Reality shows and soap operas filmed at Hitler's request. Part 1

TV journalists uncover shocking truth: Fascist Germany planned to launch a range of TV shows

Pavel Sadkov

What would have happened if Fascist Germany wasn't destroyed? Scholars have various opinions on this issue — some suggest the dropping of atomic bombs and others the invention of ridiculous weapons or spaceships. On Tuesday, the TV channel Rossiya will share a sensational new theory with its viewers. The creators of the documentary film "The Magical Eye of the Third Reich" believe Hitler's Germany was one step away from launching an entire TV industry. KP has spoken with the film's authors, who in turn agreed to share the most compelling fragments of the film with our readers.

LIVE execution on April 28, 1945

The documentary filmmakers dug up the protocol of an interrogation of SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Schultzmayer regarding the execution of Eva Braun’s relative — Hans Georg Otto Hermann Fegelein. He had tried to escape from Berlin with his pregnant wife to save her and her child.

In the transcript, Schultzmayer tells the investigator shocking news. A "Tibetan" or "man scarlet," who was among those who had "arrived from Lhasa and didn't wear swastikas," had watched the execution of Hitler's ally while standing nearby behind a patch of trees. And he wasn't only watching.

The first live broadcast is considered Hitler's speech at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

"The 'Tibetan,'" said Schultzmayer, "pointed a strange, small, elongated object towards what was transpiring." The SS officer proceeded to explain to the investigator that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had personally warned him about the Tibetan’s presence and ordered him to "stay out of the way."

"Himmler wanted the execution to be viewed somewhere else, as well," Schultzmeyer said.

April 27, 1941

Later in film, the authors reveal a letter from the daughter of German politician and Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels, Helga, to her cousin Rudolph Hesse: "Henrich! If father only saw what you filmed during the fight! No, we need to film something else — funny, for example. What you can't film with the big 'iconoscope,' you can film unnoticed with your 'pipe with an eye...' It would be great if Sakhib gave me a similar gift. Then we could film at the same time and exchange our thoughts."

What is Helga referring to? What was this mysterious "pipe with an eye" that could film events unnoticed and help people to communicate at the same time? Is she referring to the "strange, small, elongated apparatus" that the "Tibetan" used to film the execution of Eva Braun's uncle? What exactly are they referring to? A modern mobile phone with a camera? And who is this Sakhib who gave such remarkably strange presents to the children of the rulers of the Third Reich?

In Himmler's so-called visitation diary, eight meetings are noted between the Reichsführer-SS and the director of Tibetan expeditions Ernest Sheffer, as well as four meetings with envoys from Lhasa, who were immediately put to work at Himmler's Forschungs und Lehrgemeinschaft das Ahnenerbe e.V. ("Research and Teaching Community of Ancestral Heritage"). It was there, in Tibet, that German nationalists from secret societies hoped to receive ancient knowledge that was meant to show Germany its sacral path. Was this ancient knowledge a key to mastering modern-day TV?

Midday at work

Officially, the technology allowing TV studios to broadcast live saw the light of day in 1935. A year later, in 1936, serious feats were made despite the unwieldy TV station system of the day. Live all-national broadcasts were made from stadiums, meetings and parades where Adolf Hitler spoke.

It's generally thought that the first live TV signals were broadcasted from Hitler's speech at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. However, the first person to be broadcasted live was actually a far less significant government official named Olgard Hadamovsky.

At the time, TV technology was about the same worldwide. The following types of announcements would appear in the daily papers: "Watch! Watch! A living person will be broadcasted on the 56.6 airwave!" It looked like this — an image, such as a person — on a small TV screen. The individual would be sitting in front of the TV transmitter, turn his head from the right to the left, and then from the left to the right... Then another person would appear on screen and put on his glasses.

But even then, propaganda master Goebbels saw greater potential in the technology. He began sending radio waves at the same time the TV signals were broadcasted.

According to Nazi Germany’s state ideals, German women weren't supposed to work. The true Aryian woman was meant to stay home and raise her kids. For this audience, Goebbels' wife Magda suggested building special rooms adjacent to new laundry mats where 30 women or more would gather around the TV to watch broadcasts, talk among themselves and discuss what they saw. Magda turned to her husband at the Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Ministry for funds to realize the project. Goebbels promised to allocate the money if the committee agreed to thoroughly investigate the facilities.

Goebbels: "The advantage of a visual image over the audible broadcast is the audible becomes a visual image with the help of an individual’s imagination, which can't be kept under control. Regardless, each will always see his own." Thus, it's worthwhile to "immediately show everyone what should be seen, so everyone sees the same thing."

In 1945, tens of boxes containing reels of TV programs were found in the Third Reich's Chancellery. After reviewing the footage, it became clear that the German engineers were literally one step away from mastering modern-day technology.

Several boxes even had the label: "For cable."

Soviet journalists and military translators were amazed at another unexpected discover. The Third Reich, which was long thought to have focused its energy on military technologies, had given birth to an entirely new international industry — news, sports, crime, music and educational TV.

source: http://www.kp.ru/daily/24184/393064/e/

hat tip to AC

We are also under attack

"my part of the world is not immune to the attacks on truth"

When you are afraid to speak some truth and offer dissent, you are under attack.

That is unless you are part and parcel of the attack itself.

Let's see here, we have a massacre going on and when it comes to our political leaders they are silent or else cheering on the cowboys against the indians.

Obama is silent.

Congress is silent except for Dennis Kucinich and he wants to go to the UN, follow the web of procedures, waste a lot of time and end up doing nothing. Dennis is very controlled whether he's in on it or not.

Bribery and blackmail. That will always get you somewhere.

So what did you expect? A special session of Congress called to address the issue of genocide?
Right before New Year's Eve?

The timing of the attacks could not have been better. You have to give to the land thieving, ethnic cleansing Israeli 'victims.' They know a plan when they see one.

At least the whole world is not like our congressional leaders. It looks as if millions of people around the world, even though they too are under attack, are speaking out about the premeditated murder of hundreds of dispossessed people. A good number are taking to the streets and getting exposure.

Our new president and the incoming Congress are going to continue the same old Israeli/zionist line. They have no choice. The blackmail and the fear see to that.

Once again, the solutions to any of the problems of war, economic calamity and the vast array of social problems fall to 'We the People'.

We are under attack and we are the only defense.

What are we going to do about it?

Famous Last Contributions of an AP Editor

Or, Why The Associated Press and the ‘Mainstream Media’ Are Largely Responsible for the Theft of U.S. Tax Dollars to Subsidize Criminal U.S. and Israeli Warfare-Statism

Detain This

Following are just a few excerpts you will not find in an Associated Press news report, because if the editor allowed such a report to be released, he would probably be fired, demoted, or forced to resign — not because the statements are not true, but because, in fact, they are.

“The U.S. Constitution does not expressly grant the federal government the authority to give ‘aid’ in any form to foreign governments, groups, or individuals.”

“The U.S. federal government gives approximately $3 billion dollars every year in military and economic aid to Israel. This aid comes from taxes levied against U.S. citizens. While U.S. officials insist this aid is necessary for the ‘war on terror,’ the U.S. Constitution does not expressly grant the federal government the authority to do so.”

“The Federal Reserve is considered an illegal entity by constitutionalists, conservatives, libertarians, liberals, and others because the U.S. Constitution does not grant the federal government the authority to create a central bank or print paper money not backed by gold or silver.”

“The United Nations is considered an illegitimate entity by constitutionalists, conservatives, libertarians, liberals, and others because the U.S. Constitution does not expressly grant the federal government to concede national, state, or individual sovereignty to international bodies. Moreover, those groups argue that U.S. membership in those international bodies is particularly illegal and immoral because U.S. taxpayer monies are used to subsidize them.”

“According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress is not authorized to spend taxpayer money on private enterprises, or use same money to nationalize industry. Nevertheless, banking, finance, and auto industries have been ‘bailed out’ or ‘partially nationalized’ in defiance of both the Constitution and a large majority of Americans.”

Every day, AP asserts, as fact, innumerable other fantastic conjecture and wrong-headed conventional wisdom; so, why not do the same for the above moral, legal, ethical truths? Here’s why: AP and the rest of the Mainstream Mafia have every incentive not to. They rely on the subversion of the Constitution toward the growth and enrichment of the welfare-warfare state, of which they are cogs.

That’s why you’ll never see the most important facts, such as the above, within the context of, for instance, a story about Bush’s or Obama’s so-called economic rescue plans (the U.S. president has no constitutional authority to thus “manage the economy” in the first place). Nor will you see them related in terms of all the illegal, domestic and overseas wars and “diplomatic efforts.”

And here’s something to let sink in: If AP did regularly state those legal and moral realities as fact within their reportage, on a regular basis, how many of their global bureaus would eventually shut down as a result of not having the security of the U.S. or local military and police in those countries where AP bureaus are operating? For example, the Israeli government will not likely be inclined to renew the W. Jerusalem bureau’s lease if the bureau were to begin reporting the negative facts about the Israeli occupation and the legal and moral status of U.S. foreign aid to Israel. At the very least, the Israeli military establishment won’t be so keen on protecting the bureau and its staff against Israeli settlerists (whose home mortgages, land theft, and other aggressive violence, by the way, U.S. tax dollars also subsidize).

Ponder these things when considering why you never get the whole story out of AP and the MSM; then, you may begin to realize that they are indeed largely responsible for the illegal and immoral looting of your tax money toward the subsidizing of U.S. and Israeli wars, occupations, and colonization.

source: http://detainthis.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/famous-last-contributions-of-an-ap-editor/

The Hidden History of Zionism

The Hidden History of Zionism, Veritas Press, Santa Barbara (Calif.) 1988.

Ralph Schoenman

Bibliographic note

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface: The Uprising

1. The Four Myths

2. Zionist Objectives

3. Colonizing Palestine

4. Tragic Consequences

5. The Seizure of the Land

6. Zionism and the Jews

7. The Myth of Security

8. Blitzkrieg and Slaughter

9. The Second Occupation

10. The Prevalence of Torture

11. The Prisons

12. Strategy for Conquest

13. A Strategy for Revolution

Map: The Zionist Vision of Eretz Israel

Suggested Reading (not yet transcribed)

Appendix (not yet transcribed)

About the Author

Excerpts:

From its inception, the Zionist movement sought the “Armenianization” of the Palestinian people. Like the Native Americans, the Palestinians were regarded as “a people too many”. The logic was elimination; the record was to be one of genocide.

Four overriding myths have shaped the consciousness of most people in our society about Zionism.

The first is that of “A land without a people for a people without a land.” This myth was sedulously cultivated by early Zionists to promote the fiction that Palestine was a remote, desolate place ready for the taking. This claim was quickly followed by denial of Palestinian identity, nationhood or legitimate entitlement to the land in which the Palestinian people have lived throughout their recorded history.

The second is the myth of Israeli democracy. Innumerable newspaper stories or television references to the Israeli state are followed by the assertion that it is the only “real” democracy in the Middle East. In fact, Israel is as democratic as the apartheid state of South Africa. Civil liberty, due process and the most basic human rights are by law denied those who do not meet racial, religious criteria.

The third myth is that of “security” as the motor force of Israeli foreign policy. Zionists maintain that their state must be the fourth largest military power in the world because Israel has been forced to defend itself against imminent menace from primitive, hate-consumed Arab masses only recently dropped from the trees.

The fourth myth is that of Zionism as the moral legatee of the victims of the Holocaust. This is at once the most pervasive and insidious of the myths about Zionism. Ideologues for the Zionist movement have wrapped themselves in the collective shroud of the six million Jews who fell victim to Nazi mass murder. The bitter and cruel irony of this false claim is that the Zionist movement itself actively colluded with Nazism from its inception.

In his Complete Diaries, Vol.II, Page 711, Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish state stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”.

The publication of the Personal Diary of Moshe Sharett (Yoman ishi, Maariv, Tel Aviv, 1979) demolished the myth of security as the motor force of Israeli policy. Moshe Sharett was a former Prime Minister of Israel (1954-55), director of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department and Foreign Minister (1948-56).

Sharett’s diary reveals in explicit language that the Israeli political and military leadership never believed in any Arab danger to Israel.

They sought to maneuver and force the Arab states into military confrontations which the Zionist leadership were certain of winning so Israel could carry out the destabilization of Arab regimes and the planned occupation of additional territory.

Sharett described the governing motive of Israeli military provocation:

To bring about the liquidation of all ... Palestinian claims to Palestine through the dispersion of the Palestinian refugees to distant corners of the world.

Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The subsequent dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas, as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run. The dissolution of the military power of these states serves as the primary short-term target.

Moshe Dayan, former Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense, was uninhibited in his summary of the nature of Zionist colonization before students at the Israel Institute of Technology (The Techniyon):

We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building here a Hebrew, Jewish state. Instead of Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You do not even know the names of these villages and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only the books, but also the villages do not exist.

Source: http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/

TVA report details toxic chemicals - arrests activists

With the EPA reporting that water samples are safe......it reminds me of the EPA reports right after 9/11 that the air was safe. We know how that turned out.

The EPA and the rest of the government have no problem telling lies to the American people.

After all, government officials who told hundreds of lies to bring us to invade Iraq resulting in over a million deaths wouldn't hesitate to tell a few 'white lies' to prevent people from panicking or calling their lawyers.

Some activists are trying to get their own samples for testing. (see below)

It's a sad state of affairs when information about the public's health is in doubt.

Photo by J. Miles Cary

This is the eastern wall of the Kingston Fossil Plant dike that breached and spilled sludge onto Swan Pond Road and a railroad track that serviced the steam plant.

2 activists arrested for taking photos of TVA toxic coal ash spill

by Karen Harper

Two men who are part of the non-profit United Mountain Defense located in Knoxville were arrested and detained yesterday as they tried to take photographs of the coal ash sludge spill that occurred on December 22 in Harriman, Tennessee. It is unclear why TVA police detained the two men. They were on public land during the incident.

David Cooper and Matt Landon who were detained by the TVA police planned to take water samples but were just taking photographs of the spill at the time of their arrest. TVA has not responded to requests for more information on the incident.

David Cooper commented, "...the dust and airborne contaminants from the coal ash are dangerous. Workers on the clean up site should be wearing respiratory protection. This could cause breathing problems for the workers like we saw at the World Trade Center." He also went on to say he was sorry that he and his fellow activist had caused problems for TVA, and that their "concern is for the safety of nearby residents and their families."

Other environmentalists are on the scene and have had more success getting water samples.

According to the Tennessean, levels of thallium and lead, both toxic to humans have been found to be elevated in test samples taken from river water near the ash spill. TVA official Terry Johnson remarked that though he didn't know the amount, levels are lower than those considered a health risk.

Residents report that there are numerous dead fish on the banks of the river. TVA spokespeople have stated that the fish were probably killed when they were blasted out of the water when the spill occurred.

Asheville's Citizen-Times reports that environmentalists are asking authorities to give stronger warnings to residents regarding the much left after the spill. While TVA and local authorities are assuring residents they are not at risk unless they ingest the sludge, but Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the TVA is cautioning people to avoid the area. "If they do touch it, they should wash their hands."

In the meantime, environmentalists, including those who were detained by TVA police for taking photographs are warning area residents to err on the side of caution and continue to urge TVA workers and cleanup crews to wear protective gear. more - Examiner

TVA report details toxic chemicals at Kingston dredge cells

By Josh Flory (Contact)
Originally published 10:50 a.m., December 30, 2008

Thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the dredge cells at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant last year, according to a report on the agency's Web site.

In a toxic release inventory, TVA says releases into the Kingston dredge cells include the following:

- More than 1.4 million pounds of barium compounds;

- More than 49,000 pounds of lead compounds;

- More than 142,000 pounds of manganese compounds; and

- More than 44,000 pounds of arsenic compounds.

According to a TVA spokeswoman, the land release data comprise materials released into the fossil plant's dredge cells. Last week, a failure of the facility's dredge cell walls caused a massive spill of fly ash, which fouled the Emory River and damaged dozens of properties.

The report also outlines a smaller amount of materials that was discharged into the Emory River.

A news release issued by federal, state and local officials Monday said water from private wells or springs may be contaminated if impacted by the release and that "these sources of water should not be used for drinking, cooking or bathing until they have been evaluated."

knoxnews

High level of arsenic found at TVA spill

A high level of arsenic has been found in a waterway next to TVA's Kingston power plant where a dike break last week released more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge.

The arsenic found in one of several river water samples registered above the amount permitted in drinking water, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report.

Two metals, lead and thallium, have been found in the water next to the accident, but both were in concentrations that pose no health hazard, according to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

No problems have been found in drinking water, which is being tested regularly at the Kingston and Rockwood water treatment plants, said EPA spokeswoman Laura Niles. Ordinary treatment at drinking water plants would likely remove the pollutants if they reach the plant's water intakes, officials said.

"Unless people regularly drink untreated river water, the arsenic should not cause any adverse health effects," said a statement Monday from a group of agencies responding to the disaster.

Federal and state agencies plan to continue sampling water in the Emory River, where the arsenic was found. They also are sampling the Clinch River, which joins the Emory. The Tennessee River that they flow into is also being monitored.

Aquatic life could be at risk, said Wendy Smith, Nashville director of Southeastern Rivers and Streams Program of the World Wildlife Fund. "Something can swim away, and they may or may not be affected by it," she said of fish.

"Some of the ones that stay in the same place I would be more concerned about, mussels and snails, for instance."

Toxic substances that stay in the sediment can be taken up in the food chain, too, she said.

Bits of the ash that's lying across almost 300 acres, including a neighborhood, fields and wetlands, have also been gathered for analysis, but results were not available Monday, federal and state officials said

Coal contains arsenic, lead and many other substances naturally that can become concentrated in the ash when it is burned to create electricity.

Officials say they are not seeing the potentially toxic substances farther downstream and it may be because the heavier elements could be falling out of the water column into the streambed.

Four water wells that residents use in the area are being testing for contaminants, also, Niles said. These are believed to be the only residential wells in the immediate area.

"I think they were beyond the actual slide point of the material," she said. "There shouldn't be direct impact, but that's why they are sampling."

The ash slide and flood happened in early morning Dec. 22, when a 40-acre earthen, above-ground coal ash holding pond gave way, knocking one house off its foundation, damaging 11 others, toppling trees and power lines and filling a bay of the Emory River.

Cleanup continues

TVA has brought heavy equipment and workers to the site where cleanup is going on around the clock, officials have said.

Residents are advised to wash off the ash if it gets on them or their clothes, to avoid tracking it into their homes on their shoes and to avoid breathing any that dries and becomes airborne. Air monitoring has begun.

Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment, but elevated levels can cause ailments ranging from nausea to partial paralysis, and long-term exposure has been linked to several types of cancer, according to the EPA.

Thallium and lead can cause neurological damage.

TVA Inspector General Richard Moore said Monday that his office will investigate the spill and TVA's response to it. The inspector general's office is independent from TVA but will coordinate its work with EPA and Tennessee environmental regulators.

Knoxville-based TVA supplies electricity to all of Tennessee and parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

The Tennessean

Photo by Saul Young

TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore answers questions before 300 people who showed up for a special meeting of the Kingston City Council on Sunday held at the Roane County High School gymnasium to discuss the recent failure of a TVA fly ash retention pond.

A Nice Raise for CEO of TVA

NASHVILLE - The nation's biggest public utility is raising its chief executive's compensation by nearly a half million dollars, a month after its largest electric rate increase in three decades took effect.

Tennessee Valley Authority President and CEO Tom Kilgore told board members meeting Thursday in Nashville that the rate could go down in January because fuel costs have decreased. He didn't say how much the rate may decrease.

At the meeting, board members approved raising Kilgore's bonus-driven compensation package from a potential $2.7 million to $3.27 million, effective the next fiscal year.

On Oct. 1, the TVA put a 20 percent electricity rate increase into effect, raising average residential bills by $15.80 to $19.80 a month. It's the TVA's biggest rate boost since 1974 and its second this year, following a 7 percent increase in April - all because of ballooning costs for fuel and purchased power. more

Tennessee Valley Authority pulled in a record $10.4 billion in revenues in the recently ended 2008 fiscal year thanks to rate and fuel costs increases.

Net income in 2008 increased to $817 million from $423 million a year ago. A one-time accounting adjustment increased net income by $350 million. Excluding the increase, TVA would have posted net income of $467 million, an increase of 10 percent. more

TVA Executives Receive 6-Figure Bonuses

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The recession is not hurting the paychecks of some of the Tennessee Valley Authority's top executives, who are cashing six-figure bonus checks.

According to federal documents, the CEO of TVA, Tom Kilgore, makes $655,000 a year. In addition to his salary, he received an incentive bonus of more than $1 million for 2008, bringing his total income to $2.4 million.

TVA's chief financial officer, Kimberly Green, earned a salary of $503,000 in 2008 and received a bonus of $493,000, which made for an income of $1.3 million.

William McCollum, the chief operating officer, earned $726,000, with a $751,000 bonus, for a total of $1.8 million. 12-29-08 more msnbc

~~~~~~~~

A lot of revenue money coming in to TVA and a lot going out to executives.

It seems like bonuses and salaries should be based on oversight and accountability.

At least they should have hired someone to put their finger in the dike.

See previous report: TVA dike break - Tennessee's Exxon Valdez

Thoughts for a Tuesday Morning

Kingfisher

A Few Observations
The Middle East situation can spiral out of control in various ways. Meanwhile, Pakistan is continually compromised. Come to find out that India made agreements with Iran back in January 2003 to use Iranian military bases "in the event of any outbreak of tensions with Pakistan." Just a thought...since Israel has infiltrated India -- made clear by the Mumbai attacks -- does this agreement give Israel a trojan horse opening to infiltrate Iranian military bases via India? Wouldn't it be convenient for Mossad to start something from inside an Iranian military base? What more could one ask for but a totally deniable false flag operation on one's arch enemy? Conclusion: Let us hope the Iranians have the matter well in hand.
more - A. Peasant at Twelfth Bough

Terrorist States Collude in Gaza War Crime
As the American-supplied carnage in Gaza goes on, let's turn to Nir Rosen, who, as he says, has "spent most of the Bush administration's tenure reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia" and other hellish quadrants of the Terror War. Here he blazes with truth and fury in the pages of the Guardian:

Once again, the Israelis bomb the starving and imprisoned population of Gaza. The world watches the plight of 1.5 million Gazans live on TV and online; the western media largely justify the Israeli action. Even some Arab outlets try to equate the Palestinian resistance with the might of the Israeli military machine. And none of this is a surprise. The Israelis just concluded a round-the-world public relations campaign to gather support for their assault, even gaining the collaboration of Arab states like Egypt.
more - Chris Floyd


On Fourth Day of Gaza Battle, No End in Sight

JERUSALEM — Israel launched air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza for a fourth consecutive day on Tuesday as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the bombardment “the first of several stages,” suggesting that the conflict was far from resolution.
more - NY Times



from Telegraph UK


'dumbed down' Americans

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

My $0.02 worth: the Shadow Powers have understood this and have worked for years to nationalize education. Through this control, they have
1) successfully “dumbed down” Americans until we think we live in a democracy (rather than a republic),
2) conned us into thinking that government is our benefactor (but they give us nothing we didn’t already give them through taxes first),
3) created a passive herd of “wage slaves”who know just enough to make a living (and pay taxes) but not enough to know the Constitution and the real gov’t intended by its framers.

more - disinter

News from the Future: Israeli Press Release from 2020
Holocaust™ News Service-- Jewish Feast of the Purim, March 22, 2020

Today, elements of the IDF made a "peaceful" incursion into Gazan enclaves in the Sinai, to root out and destroy Palestinian rocket squads using the Qassam II rocket against Israel.

Israeli President Nancy Peloschitz said that "Israel is above all, a peace loving nation that wishes to live in tranquility with her neighbors, but she will not stand by and let those rockets rain down on Israeli cities near the Sinai."

"We will engage the Palestinians in a friendly embrace, to get them to see the errors of their ways and stop firing those Qassams into Israel," said Peloschitz.

The IDF will reportedly send in several tank divisions and around 20,000 IDF troops, after the aerial bombardment ends, to root out the "aL Qaeda" like terrorists who are behind these acts, said an IDF spokesperson, adding that just like America went after those Muslims behind 9/11, Israel is going after their comrades in arms in the Sinai.
more - Greg Bacon


Is it the end of the New World Order
By 2008 the USA was "in the throes of decline, its fall from power imminent."

G.W. Bush had attacked Afghanistan "to wipe out Al-Qaeda, that many suspect does not exist, and then Iraq that had not even provoked any one."

All this was done to “rid the world of terrorism”.

The real agenda was:

1. To demolish unfriendly regimes under the garb of “ushering in democracy”,

2. Splinter and remap the Muslim world,

3. Crush Islamic groups opposed to US policies,

4. Grab energy resources,

5. Extend hegemony into former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet Republics,

6. Promote the interests of American military industrial complex that thrives on war,

7. Terrorize the world into submission and financially gain from the resulting chaos.

These actions brought ruin to America.

more - aangirfan


Hold Your Fire, What About Shalit?
Oy, I'm so unhappy with this Israeli operation in Gaza.

You want to kill arabs, shoin, you want to smite their kids and elders, shoin. But what about our innocent Jewish soldat, Gilad'le Shalit? He is as pure as driven snow.

Don't they remember in the IDF that one angelic Jewish soul is worth thousands of islamofacist meshugenehs?

Auntie Ziona calls on the IDF to stop the blitzkrieg immediately. First we have to rescue Shalit, who is reported to be wounded. Then you have the green light from me to flatten all these arabish Hamasniks in their beds.

United against the terrorists
Auntie Ziona


Israeli electioneering with bombs

Of the three politicians who announced the military assault on Gaza to the world on Saturday, perhaps only the outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert has little to lose -- or gain -- from its outcome.

Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader of Mr Olmert’s centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party.

The attack on Gaza may make or break this pair’s political fortunes as they jostle for position against Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing party, Likud, before a general election little more than a month away.
more - Jonathan Cook at Global Research


I Heard the Missile Coming
GAZA CITY — Ali Abu-Fatahi will never forget the terrifying sound of a missile fired by an Israeli warplane as it zoomed in on his house.

"I was having my dinner when I heard the missile's whistle," a helpless Abu-Fatahi told IslamOnline.net from his bed at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

In just seconds, the missile hit his family's house in the Dir Al-Balah City, razing it to the ground.

"I flew in the sky and then I found myself lying on the floor at our neighbors' house," he recalled the harrowing moments with tears flashing in his eyes.

Abu-Fatahi can't remember what happened next.
more - Rock the Truth

Also see Gaza Massacre - Slideshow at Truth Rocker


Military recruiters having no trouble filling quotas
n a crumbling economy, jobs disappear and opportunities fade. But one employer always has openings: the U.S. military.

Just four years after South Florida recruiters struggled to meet even half their quotas, the Army is exceeding enlistment goals by appealing to a wide range of candidates who see limited job options in the civilian world.

Working for low pay on the evening shift at a West Palm Beach International House of Pancakes influenced Cheyenne DaSilva's decision to enlist, even before the 17-year-old completes her senior year at Forest Hill Community High School.

Dasilva received an $8,000 signing bonus when she enlisted for three-and-a-half years. She chose the military police as her specialty.

"It's something exciting, and a guaranteed job," DaSilva said.
more - Mike Clary via Strike the Root


To Secede or Not to Secede...Is That the Question?
I recently attended the 3^rd North American Secessionist Convention held in Manchester , New Hampshire .

While the topic of secession is not uncommon to readers of this daily journal, the idea of secession is unique and unappealing to most Americans. The term often brings forth images of the Civil War, slavery, the assassination of a President and a defeated Confederacy. Americans seem blissfully unaware that the Declaration of Independence was an act of secession from Great Britain and that the history of nation-states throughout the world is replete with sections breaking away from larger political bodies to go their own separate way, the latest being the attempt of South Ossetia to leave the nation of Georgia.

more - Duane Colyar at Strike the Root

Clean coal technology...bah! Humbug!
The coal industry and its allies have taken advantage of the state of confusion surrounding the place of oil and other sources of energy in our lives by running a campaign which amounts to nothing else but a (surprise!) bald-faced lie.
more with video at The Greanville Journal


Wall St. and the Fed Get Fatter, While Main St. Suffers

“Wall Street has hijacked the economy for the last twenty some years.” - Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO

The Fed and Wall Street are the real powers in the land. During the financial meltdown crisis in the Fall of 2008, the U.S. Congress acted as a patsy for the fiscal elite. The Fed Chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., ordered the politicos to give Wall Street banksters a bailout of $700 billion of taxpayers’ money with no review. Although, it initially balked, the Congress soon caved in to that rash demand, with little or no strings attached. (1) The Fed, a/k/a “The Federal Reserve System,” was sanctioned by an Act of Congress in 1913, but it’s a quasi-private, and not a publicly owned, entity, whereas, the banksters on Wall Street are the essence of private, money-grubbing enterprises. They both have their own corporate interests and are not truly accountable to the Congress. (2) While this clique, whose laissez-faire policies helped to create this ugly financial mess, is getting fatter, more Americans, daily, are falling through the cracks.

more - William Hughes at The Peoples Voice

The Gaza crisis and the perspective of permanent revolution

As the terrible events have unfolded in Gaza over the past three days, it has become clear that the present-day Arab bourgeois governments are either acting as direct accomplices in the attack on the Palestinians or offering their tacit political support.

The most criminal role has been played by the US-backed police state regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Egypt had collaborated with Israel in enforcing its punishing economic blockade of Gaza by closing the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. After the bombing started, terrified Palestinians trying to flee across the Egyptian border to safety were met with Egyptian machine gun fireUltimately, the aggressive militarism of the Israeli state is an expression not merely of Zionist ideology, but of deep-going social, political and class fissures that run through Israeli society. It is a society characterized by vast social inequality and a regime headed by an individual, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose narrow escape from criminal indictment for financial and political corruption expresses the corrosion of the entire Zionist establishment.
more - Bill Van Auken at wsws.org


Rothschildistan: Murdering Again
Israel is not part of the civilized world. It behaves like a psychopathic State and should be treated accordingly. But it’s also time to hold to account the people most directly responsible for its long-standing villainy.

When Lord Walter Rothschild extracted the Balfour Declaration from the British Government in 1917, the statement contained a significant clause:

“…it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine“

The Zionist movement cynically violated this part of the declaration from the outset. Is that how Rothschilds ‘honour’ agreements?

more - Revelations, Secrets of Zion

"Intelligent Design." by Alex Constantine

Intelligent Design (Lyrics)
Alex Constantine

Life in the desert knows death in the wind,
Coyote feasts on lizard's withered skin,
The hawk searches out its prey,
The sun burns all the bones away -
Intelligent Design.

Predatory creatures run the earth,
Wanting flesh from the moment of birth -
And this is the hand of God,
Strikes me as very odd -
Intelligent Design.

Be et or eat,
Intelligent Design!